“Oh, my story! It isn’t much of a story, old chap! The little kiddie died, as I said. That rather knocked me up,—left me a bit lonely. Then my wife—well, she was all the time anxious to be a great figure in society. I wanted a home,—she didn’t care about it. She said that housekeeping was a bore, and that she liked hotels better. And I—well!—I felt myself rather in her way. So I was glad to be ordered out on active service. You see, I want her to be happy,—for me, nothing matters.”
Ferrers was silent.
“I have often thought,” went on Arteroyd musingly, “especially since I’ve been out here on these great bare stretches of burnt-up land, without a tree in sight, that death isn’t the worst part of life. There’s a God somewhere, Dandy!”
“Of course there is!” answered Dandy promptly. “It’s only the parsons that make us doubt it.”
“When all the colour and gladness have gone out of the world for a man,” said Arteroyd, talking to himself more than to his friend—“when he does not see any hope or beauty anywhere,—and when the one thing—the best thing of all—love—has failed him—and with it all he’s done a bit of service to his country and lived as straight as he can—then I think death is often sent to him just in the nick of time—to save him from growing hard and mean and bitter—and to take his soul to his Maker while it’s fairly clean and sweet—”
Ps—st! A sharp report—a sudden hiss through the air—a small but vivid flash of flame—a smothered cry—
“Look out, Dandy!—Take care of yourself! Good-bye!”
And Arteroyd’s tall figure, erect a moment before, rolled over and over on the ground, and then lay motionless.
Reckless of all danger for himself, Ferrers rushed to his side.
“Jack!”